← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Don't Mention the War!
00:27:53
As one of the last heroes of the Vietnam War is laid to rest, Rajan Datar hears young...
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- [00:00]
Kate Adie
Hello from the.
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Neil Roselle
From our own correspondence studios at Broadcasting
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Kate Adie
House in London, you've downloaded the latest edition of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
- [00:09]
Neil Roselle
It's introduced by Kate Ady.
- [00:11]
Programme Presenter
Hello. Today, don't mention the war. Why the Vietnamese think it's time to move on and forget the bitter conflicts of the last century. It's drinks all round in Lagos as more and more of Nigeria's largest city sees the light. What makes a prisoner a political prisoner? It's a sensitive and increasingly divisive debate in Burma. And it's happy 50th birthday for our bureau in Moscow. The typewriters may have gone, so has the Soviet Union. But has that much really changed? The state funeral on Sunday of the Vietnamese war hero General Giap really did mark the end of an era. Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to pay their last respects to a commander credited with overseeing the defeat of both French and American armies in his country. It was an extraordinary outpouring of emotion in a population whose freedom of expression is tightly restricted. And yet the general's departure severs one more link with Vietnam's three decades of bitter warfare. Today, as Rajan Datta has been finding out, this is a country with one of Southeast Asia's fastest growing economies. And its people have other things on their minds.
- [01:22]
Rajan Datta
On the western outskirts of sprawling, humid Hanoi, away from the bustle of the scooters and street vendors, a net network of narrow back streets leads to a row of three story buildings. the entrance to one of these, I'm greeted by a slightly built young man in tinted glasses, wearing a singlet and army style shorts. Tattoos adorn both arms and his braided hair is tied back. His name is Bush Lam, and he introduces me to a couple of his housemates. One, a tattooist called Kwan, another a woman in her early 20s, it transpires, is from Jersey. She teaches English as a foreign language, a pretty lucrative line of work right now in Vietnam. A large pit bull crossbreed, which I'm told is still a puppy, lollops about. Playfully, I'm assured I keep my distance. I just spent a couple of days making myself familiar with the sights of Hanoi. The war memorabilia, the French colonial architecture, the scenic lakes, the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Yet this visit to a typical post student house share turns out to be much more illuminating about the state of Vietnam today. Because Bush Lamb is a dj, AKA Slolo, part of the Sub Elements Sound System collective, which specialises in the dance music genres of dubstep, reggae and trip hop. We settle in front of his laptop, speakers and mixing desk, and he takes me through the music software he deploys to record and mix his tracks. He takes voices from the street, uses samples from a wide variety of sources, and fuses them all together to create a unique sound. He's prolific and apparently his club nights are becoming very popular, but it's what he represents that I find particularly interesting. It's 40 years now since the United States pulled out of Vietnam. The conflict shaped a whole generation of baby boomers in the west and obviously inflicted a great deal of pain and destruction on millions of people in Vietnam. But in a country where nearly half the population is like bush, aged 25 or under, the war era inevitably carries less personal resonance and its pursuit existence as a prism through which his country is still perceived is a source of irritation. Sure, he tells me, he and his friends respect the struggles of their parents generation and largely share their patriotism and loyalty to Vietnam's one party socialist state. Family is everything here, Bush tells me, and he's had great support from his now elderly parents. But ultimately, Bush says most Vietnamese people are so over the war they don't want to talk about it, don't even mention it today. They want their country to be recognized for its culture, its art and its natural beauty. In the big cities like Hanoi, many young Vietnamese are familiar with the droves of young backpackers from Europe, Australia and the States. Some work, mix and play with them. I'd met a couple of lads from Liverpool in a cafe earlier that day and they told me that they and three others had arrived two years ago after university. And now they'd all settled in with well paid jobs teaching English and a lifestyle they had no intention of of giving up for a life back in the UK on the dole. Vietnam is their future, but they don't come to dominate, just to fit in. And these Westerners have influenced their urban Vietnamese counterparts. As Bush, who has never left his homeland, happily concedes. The personal liberty, the easy going lifestyle, the individual fashion sense are all attractive to the social media savvy set here. Overt political campaigning is seen as a no go area and will be crushed. The country has just pass a controversial law banning Vietnamese online users from even discussing current affairs. Yet many younger people here do aspire to social and cultural change. The right to gather without surveillance, express yourself without censorship, to travel, have sex before marriage, break a few taboos. Ironically, this to me carries echoes of the swinging 60s, the counterculture generation, the free love anti war movement of the West 40 years ago and I wonder whether the state apparatus of Vietnam, now more open to consumerism and global influences, might be willing to turn a blind eye to this new, mildly bohemian underground. Bush tells me before I leave in his streetwise American twang that he hopes the authorities realise that more open self expression is a good thing, not dangerous, but cultural. Young people, he adds, need new things all the time. And if Vietnam doesn't change, well, it's not going anywhere.
- [06:07]
Programme Presenter
And that was Rajan Datta in Hanoi. The Burmese opposition leader, Aung San SUU Kyi, has been meeting senior government officials in London to discuss democratic progress in her home country. After their talks, the foreign secretary, William Hague, said he agreed with her that changing the constitution in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, was vital if elections there in 2015 were to be fully democratic. Recent years have seen the country's military leadership introducing a series of limited reforms. The press has been liberalised, Ms. Suu Kyi herself has taken up a seat in parliament, and hundreds of political prisoners have been released. But Jonah Fisher's been learning that the fate of the hundred plus who remain inside is still very uncertain.
- [06:55]
Kate Adie
The military hat still hangs proudly on the wall of Major Wingnan Zhuo's house. It's on a peg just beneath what's clearly a favorite picture. The major, in sunglasses, stands stiffly and stares out sternly. Next to him, his wife, Kin Mo San, has an infectiously radiant smile. Smiles are now in very short supply. Kinmo San has just been to visit her husband in prison. He's not well, she says, shaking her head, before telling me. He's been sad and depressed since President Obama visited Myanmar last year. High level foreign visits are often accompanied by prisoner releases, and this trip was no different. Of the 10 political prisoners serving life in the Major's Block in prison, nine were allowed to go free. Only he was left behind. The government clearly hates him, kin Mo San told me. Sadly. The major certainly has powerful enemies. Four years ago, he was arrested at Yangon Airport after spending weeks in jail. He confessed to leaking sensitive details of Myanmar's military ties with North Korea to journalists. Under a law more than 60 years old, he was sentenced to death for revealing state secrets. As is now common in Myanmar, the sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment. Kinmo San tells me her husband's confession was forced made after he'd been deprived of food, water and sleep, and his family had been threatened. Whatever the truth, the major is considered by many to be a political prisoner. Earlier this year, Myanmar's president set up a special committee to identify political prisoners and submit recommendations to the government as to who should go free. But those, like the Major, who are put on the list are not necessarily freed. For all the talk of democracy, it's not hard to guess who's blocking his release. The Burmese army is still hugely powerful. Not many of the 133 names still on the latest list of political prisoners are straightforward. Often the issue is about what exactly makes a prisoner political. Some human rights groups are unhappy that those who've taken part in violence are included. And what if it's someone who's been party to the most brutal of atrocities? Should they then be ruled out? In a dingy room on the outskirts of Yangon, I met up with one of the daughters of a student leader called Hussein. She showed me the only picture the family have of their father. A fresh faced young man from another era in the 1970s and 80s, Usain worked as part of the resistance against the dictatorship and then joined a rebel group called the All Burma Students Democratic Front. On the front line in the northern mountains, relations between the young fighters soured. Usain was among a group accused of being government spies. Fifteen were executed outright. The rest were buried up to their waists in the ground, beaten and left exposed to the elements for more than a week. Having dreamt of bringing democracy to Myanmar, Usain and 19 others ended up being tortured to death by their own side. One of the men leading the students interrogation and torture was called Tan Zhong. He is now being held in jail, but much to the horror of the tortured students families, he may not be there much longer. Activists consider Tan Zhong to be a political prisoner. His name has just been put forward by the committee for release. Boji, himself a former political prisoner, told me he considers all of the students, including Tanjung, to be victims of the system at the time, the products of a brutal military dictatorship and the suspicion and paranoia it created. Boji wants Tan Zhong released and then a meeting held with the families of the students so the killer can explain his actions and they can, he hopes, be reconciled. If it did happen, it would be an isolated example of Myanmar delving into its traumatic recent past. The tentative democratic changes that have taken place here in the last three years have been made possible by looking firmly to the future to avoid upsetting the army and its vested interests. All are acutely aware that scratching too deep or looking too closely at recent history could threaten Myanmar's still fragile reforms.
- [11:26]
Programme Presenter
Jonah Fisher in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, there's been some limited praise for Greece and the way it's been handling its fiscal problems. The European Commission said progress had been made. But after three years of austerity and painful economic adjustment, more still needed to be done, it suggested, if growth and job creation were to be achieved. An agreement over the country's debt still has to be reached with international creditors, prompting fears there may be yet more painful belt tightening to come. Away from the big cities, Greeks have been finding their own ways of dealing with the long running financial crisis, as Alexa Devorson has been finding out.
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Alexa Devorson
It's the end of harvest time on Mount Pelion, whose fertile slopes stretch the length of a peninsula that juts into the Aegean Sea like a curved finger. In a complex process lasting months, regional grapes are distilled to a clear spirit and flavoured with fragrant anise. The result is tsiporo, which locals call love in a glass of knowledge. It's quite smooth for 42% proof. And after a long absence from this country, one cool sip was all I needed to be reminded of Greek hospitality. Within minutes, Costas, who runs a modest taverna or restaurant in the village of Dracchia, was setting down small plates of fresh bread, grilled vegetables and slivers of fish, all prepared by his mother. I hadn't ordered any food, but after a long day's travel, this savory snack under a giant sycamore tree hit the spot. Later, when I asked how much I should pay, Costas just smiled with a look that said, on the house. Now you understand our problem, my host, Anastasia, said, laughing. My country is too generous. That's why Greece is in so much financial trouble. She had a point. Even though Greece had an excellent tourist season this year, Costas had no good reason to treat a stranger to dinner. The village of Dracchia, halfway up Mount Pelion, doesn't get many visitors, so Costas might have to close the taverna and head to Germany to earn some solid income for the winter. He's hardly alone. Since Greece's debt crisis bit into the economy, well over 100,000 Greeks have gone abroad in search of work. Anastasia tried it twice, but came back. I realized what I was missing here, she told me. The land, the sun, the sea and my language are the most important things in life. But she refused to discuss the debt crisis any further until I watched a Greek TV documentary called Debtocracy, which explores the concept of odious debt. That's a legal term dating back to the late 1920s. It means debts that were run up by former dictators or other illegitimate governments can be declared invalid by a subsequent legitimate government. Anastasia agrees with Greek leftists who say their country's debt should be declared odious, too. They think Greek citizens bear no responsibility for the billions owed to international creditors and that the government's austerity measures will only put more people out of work. Of course, today's austerity is a far cry from the kind practiced by 14th century monks in Greece's central plains. Like the ascetic hermits who preceded them, these pious souls, devoted to divinity, came to a remote expanse of sandstone pinnacles to live in total renunciation of every human pleasure. But instead of dwelling in the caves and cracks of the rocks like the hermits did, the monks built monasteries on the summits. Today, this area, known as Meteora, is a tourist attraction, drawing over a million visitors a year. But the nearby municipality of Calabaga has never provided any tourist services, not even a map of the region. So a few local residents opened an office of their own. When Giorgos Coreles, a history buff with a knack for marketing, explained how his small tour business came about, he seemed to sum up everything wrong with Greece's bloated civil sector. Even though many people work for the local government, he told me, the vice mayor said not a single person there speaks English or knows how to upload a photo. So we decided to do it ourselves. For Giorgos, the crisis offers an opportunity to take some creative initiatives instead of, as he puts it, waiting for the government to solve the country's problems. Thanks to his tours that include majestic sunset vistas, many travelers now spend an extra night in town, giving the hotels and tavernas more business. The whole community benefits from this, he says proudly. But he knows that elsewhere people feel the sting of austerity. Nearly 40% of Greece's public hospitals have been closed, along with scores of public schools. During the sunset tour, Giorgos tells the story of a traitor who centuries ago turned against his own compatriots. Hiding in the folds of these dramatic cliffs to encourage the enemy invaders below, he secretly shot an arrow carrying a written message. Just be patient, it read. My people are starving, so they will soon be easy to defeat. A tourist groans with empathy, but Giorgos offers some perspective. We always have traitors in our stories, he says with a sad smile. And the present is no exception. Now, he adds, it's our politicians who've betrayed us.
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Programme Presenter
And that's Alexei Devorson. Stories of violence and poor governance tend to dominate the news from Nigeria. Yesterday, the military talked of a battle with Boko Haram fighters in the northeast, in which 37 suspected militants were killed. But another story under discussion concerned the two bulletproof limousines the aviation ministers acquired at a cost of about a million pounds, further evidence, the critic said, of politicians squandering money. But there are still state government initiatives aimed at improving the lives of Nigerian men and women. Neil Roselle's been to look at efforts to improve power supplies and street lighting in the country's largest city, Lagos.
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Neil Roselle
Flying into Lagos at night, you'd never know there's a city of 20 million people down there. There's no orange glow, as you see on approach to smaller cities such as New York or London. There are few streetlights, so there's no glittering web to entice you. As Petula Clark sang downtown now waiting for you tonight on the streets of Lagos is darkness, and with it fear. I spent days and nights following electricity crews who are trying to change that. They're building big generators and installing lights that bypass what Nigerians call the epileptic offerings of the national power grid. At night, the crews work with a security detail on Lagos Island. The man in charge of it is called Mr. Omo. He's short and beefy, not sculpted like a bodybuilder. He's more rounded and somehow solid, like a smeg refrigerator. You're the tough guy, I said when we met by the side of a darkened road. Above, the street lights were out. Below, an electrician was on his knees with a torch in his mouth and a nest of cables in his hands. I'm not the tough guy, Mr. Olmos said, but he said it with a shrug and demeanor that showed he was not someone who'd back away from trouble. I liked him immediately, and not just because I'd already been in dark neighborhoods where shouts and noises and people come from every direction. And when you walk you can't see the ground, so you almost trip over children or fall into storm drains, and you have no idea why that crowd of young men over there are yelling and fighting, or where to go if they come any closer. Just a second, Mr. Omo said. He raised a phone to his ear. Go ahead, he said. Then to me, soon the lights will come on. They did, and there was a collective ah. I looked around and was surprised. I'd had no idea there were so many people around me. The crew started to pack up, And I asked Mr. Omo why they needed a security detail in the first place. The big problem, he said, is area boys, gangs of young men who hassle the crews for money. They're A scourge across Lagos. I'd once stopped to record the sound of children crowded under a street light. They were dressed in creamy white clothes, singing prayers with an imam. But I was there maybe five minutes before a group of area boys came up and started demanding money from my guide. They spoke heatedly in Yoruba, the local language. My guide sounded firm, but soon he said to me in English, let's go. We didn't give them any money, but I spoke with street traders who said they regularly paid 10% of their daily take to area boys, who threatened to beat them up or wreck their stalls. The government in Lagos hopes light will change that. At the Iana Ipadja market, a major trading center in the north of the city, it has spent £750,000 to install and restore lights. I met a man there named Mr. John who sells alcohol from a small stall. He told me about the moment the lights came on a week earlier. There was a jubilation, he said. Up and down the street, ask anyone. He was waving his arms and telling me how they opened drinks. It was a party. He and the other traders used to close shop when the sun set around 6:30. Now they stay open as long as they like. Mr. John says the area boys have vanished and profits are up on Lagos Island. Mr. Omo is also starting to see change. As more light comes. It's getting easier, he says. The tension is going down little by little. Electricity crews have yet to come to the street where Mr. Omo lives. The plan is to do the main roads first, then work into the neighborhoods. So far, they've lit about 120 miles of road in a place where there are more than 8,000 miles of road. Standing in the dark outside his house, Mr. Omo and I began to hear shouts from the end of the road. Then crowds of men began to run past, looking over their shoulders. Come to the back, Mr. Omo said as he put himself between me and the street. Maybe they are fighting. They might be throwing stones or bottles. We'd been talking about Lagos reputation as a dangerous place. You now do you feel safe? He asked. Of course I do, I said.
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Programme Presenter
I'm with Mr. Omo, Neil Roselle, in Lagos. Our bureau in Moscow has been celebrating its 50th anniversary. The BBC had been trying to establish a permanent presence there as early as the 1940s. But despite the director general having clandestine meetings at the Soviet embassy in London, it was to be another 20 years before the BBC moved in. Our very first correspondent there was Eric de Morney, who became A frequent contributor to this programme, his successor today, Steve Rosenberg, has been looking back at those early days. While much has changed since then, he says, a surprising amount has remained the same.
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Steve Rosenberg
I never was very good at maths, but if my calculations are right, I am, I think, the 30th BBC correspondent to be based in Russia. To my shame, until recently, I didn't know much at all about our first Moscow correspondent. But then I was only six when Eric de Morney completed his second posting in the Soviet Union in 1974 and returned to London. To be honest, in those days, Hector's house was my preferred choice of viewing, not the nine o' clock news. De Morny died in March 1997, before I even joined the BBC. But with the Moscow bureau celebrating its Golden Jubilee, I wanted to find out more about the man who founded this operation, the first BBC correspondent to come into the cold. So I contacted the BBC's TV and radio archive and they sent me snippets of Eric de Morny's reports from Russia. I tracked down de Morny's son Mark, who, curiously, is back in Russia all these years later, working at an opera and ballet theatre in the Ural Mountains. He sent me a copy of his father's memoirs. Gradually, a picture began to emerge of a journalist who was not only a fantastic writer, but also an expert on his patch and the most colourful of characters. In 1963, Eric de Morny drove from London all the way to Moscow in a dark green Humber Super Snipe, the car the BBC had bought him. He'd packed it full of typewriters, toilet paper, in fact, everything he thought he'd need for the new bureau and his new life behind the Iron Curtain. It was his dream posting. He'd been intrigued by the Soviet Union from an early age. When he was growing up in Wellington, New Zealand, in the 1920s, his next door neighbour had been a Russian general who'd fled the Civil War. Back then, de Morny had begun teaching himself Russian. But as interested as he was in Russian language and culture and history, for Eric de Morny, words held an even greater fascination. He was a poet, and whenever he began typing a news dispatch or a piece from our own correspondent, he would paint the most vivid of pictures. This is de Morny's description of how snow would transform the Soviet capital. As soon as the sun came out, it sparkled over the glistening sheets of purest white and it was like a kind of absolution in which all the shabby aspects of the city were obliterated. While in the surrounding countryside, the thick white mantle lying over woods, fields and small peasant houses gave the landscape the dreamy magic of a child's picture book. Much of the time, though, Eric de Morny's experiences in Moscow were less like a child's picture book and rather more like a John le Carre novel. He once had a six hour drinking session with the former British intelligence officer and Soviet spy Kim Philby, who had defected to the ussr. He secretly interviewed Soviet dissidents like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. On one dramatic occasion, a dissident begged de Morny to bring him two cyanide tablets. The correspondent did not oblige. But amid the daily dramas of Cold War Moscow, Eric de Morny often found room for humor. That was a sparkling feature of his reporting. For example, in May 1964 for BBC television, he reported on a fashion show, a Communist catwalk for models from around the Eastern Bloc. And de Morney was refreshingly honest. I'm no expert in the technical points here, he told the viewers, so I brought my wife along and we're going to be watching the show together. He then hands the microphone to Mrs. De Mory for more expert commentary. In a separate news item, he reports on the construction of Europe's biggest hotel, the 3000 room Hotel Rossiya, just across from Red Square. De Morny wonders whether the staff will have to use roller skates to speed down the long corridors now. A lot has changed in 50 years. For a start, the country Eric de Morney reported on the USSR no longer exists. Neither, by the way, does the giant Hotel Racia. It did get built, but it was demolished a few years back. And of course, crackly telephone lines and grainy black and white film. That all makes de Morny and his reports seem so long ago. But here's the surprising thing. Listen closely to his words, to what de Morny is telling us. And suddenly it sounds so familiar. Like his description in one report of relations between Russia and the west as distinctly chilly they still are. And in another news piece, he talks of tension between the authorities and a new generation of young Russians who are getting the bit between their teeth. Now that's a line which wouldn't be out of place in a dispatch today.
- [27:43]
Programme Presenter
And that's it. Our man in Moscow today, Steve Rosenberg, bringing us to the end of another edition. I'll be here again on Saturday morning with more correspondence stories. Do join us. Goodbye.